


In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer

by Serie11



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Canon Compliant, Crying, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Healing, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: “Hey Aqua! You done with that?”Aqua looks down at her workbench, which has Ven’s shattered wayfinder still sprawled across it. She’s made no progress at all; hasn’t even attempted it.“Ah,” Ven says, looking down at the mess. Aqua looks aside to hide her frustration; with the metalworking; with herself.Aqua, dealing with grief, and moving forward with it.
Relationships: Aqua & Terra & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55
Collections: Fic In A Box





	In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZScalantian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZScalantian/gifts).



> _"O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer."_ — Albert Camus

Ven’s wayfinder breaks on an otherwise ordinary afternoon.

It’s sunny, with a few small wisps of clouds skating around the edges of the sky. Sitting in a pool of light, Aqua is in the library, as she is a lot of the time these days, reading book after book after book. There’s so much here, and some things that she’s come across have been incredibly important to her efforts in restoring the castle and this world. Others have helped her new friends and old friends alike. There’s so much that she has yet to learn, and it’s her duty as a Master to pursue that knowledge where she can. It’s a duty she refuses to slack on.

Terra and Ven had been outside, playing with Kairi and Xion. They like to call it sparring, but there’s more showing off than serious practise happening. Aqua looks out the window and sees Ven and Xion’s heads bent close together, while Terra bemusedly watches Kairi do a handstand. All is right, and she returns to her book.

It’s another half hour before the door of the library bursts open, Ven tumbling inside with a franticness about him. Aqua is on her feet before she’s consciously decided to do so, Master’s Defender in her palm.

“Ven?” she asks sharply, and Ven visibly relaxes when he sees her.

“Aqua!” he calls. He runs over, then stands awkwardly, one foot half cocked like he’s ready to spring aside at a moment’s notice. “Er…”

Aqua looks out the window. Kairi has disappeared, but Xion and Terra are still talking in the courtyard. She dismisses her Keyblade and turns back to Ven, stepping out of the warm light.

“What is it?” she asks, expecting him to admit that he and Kairi have made a mess of the kitchen yet again, or that he wants her approval to host a party of all the Keyblade wielders they know. Instead he shuffles his feet and looks up at her with a pinched expression.

“I’m really sorry… I didn’t mean for it to happen, promise!”

Aqua just lifts an eyebrow, waiting.

Ven sighs, and pulls his hand out of his pocket. Her breath catches when she sees it – Ven’s wayfinder, with two of the arms bent out of shape, and four of the glass panels shattered.

“Xion and I were trying to practise a new move, but then I tripped and with all the magic that was going everywhere I don’t really know when it happened, but when I sat up after being knocked down it was there so it must have fallen out of my pocket –”

“Ven,” Aqua says, cutting him off. “I know you didn’t mean to do it.”

Ven shakes his head in a vigorous denial, before he looks up at her with pleading eyes. “Can you fix it?” he asks, and Aqua’s heart squeezes in her chest, tight and hurting. She wonders sometimes if that’s a sign that her heart is less, hollowed out over the years, or if she’s overfull to bursting with it all, packed in there with no outlet.

“Of course,” she manages, and her voice doesn’t shake.

* * *

It’s almost mocking, how her old room is exactly the same.

Or at least, she thinks it is. Despite all the time that she once spent in here, her memories of the place are fairly fuzzy. Pushed aside as completely unimportant, when she had far greater things to be worrying about. It’s still unsettling to walk into the room and find things that she’d completely forgotten about – the notes and half completed accessories, several books that she’d been meaning to read before everything happened, her spare training clothes hanging up in her closet.

Her workstation is in the room next to hers, connected by a piece of magic that Eraqus helped her set up when she was sixteen. It’s stupid to get emotional over something like a doorway, but she does anyway, running her fingers over the joint and feeling the answering hum. They’d worked together on it – Eraqus providing the power, and she controlling the spell. It was the first major spell that she’d achieved, linking two rooms together even though in reality her workshop is on the other side of the castle.

Inside is organised chaos. It almost seems like a betrayal that there’s no coating of dust, nothing to show the passage of time that has been so cruel to her. It looks untouched, just like her.

“Are you hiding something too?” Aqua asks the room, mostly just to fill the space. Of course it isn’t hiding anything. She can feel the push and pull of the magic at the door, something that’s only possible because the castle recognises her as the master now. She keeps stumbling across memories of him, things that they worked on together. Trying to find a paper that he’d written in his old office had almost been too much for her. The room is sealed off now, but she can still feel the lingering presence of his magic in nearly every corner of this castle. 

The only change in this room since Aqua returned is the pile of glass and metal that is Ven’s wayfinder. Besides the time she came in here to deposit the shattered accessory, she hasn’t entered this room since she returned. She has too much to do to be messing around with her old hobby.

She moves forward to touch the very edge of the wayfinder. She should sit down and try to fix it. She doesn’t exactly know why she hasn’t, yet. She’s certainly out of practise, but she isn’t going to get any better by avoiding the problem.

There’s a small crash, and then Ven appears in the doorway, peering curiously inside.

“Hey Aqua! You done with that?”

Aqua looks down at her workbench, which has Ven’s shattered wayfinder still sprawled across it. She’s made no progress at all; hasn’t even attempted it.

“Ah,” Ven says, looking down at the mess. Aqua looks aside to hide her frustration; with the metalworking, and with herself.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and Ven comes to her side, a lot less bouncier than when he’d tumbled into the doorway.

“Don’t be! I know I managed to smash it up pretty badly. If you can’t fix it, that’s okay.”

Ven says this with a small smile on his face, as if it’s just a slight inconvenience, something to be sad about for a few minutes before it’s forgotten. Aqua feels her chest tighten at the mere suggestion of it, and struggles to speak for several seconds.

“Don’t be silly,” she finally manages. “If I can’t fix it, then I’ll make you another one.” She held on far too tightly to her own wayfinder to ever let Ven go without one. It’s selfish of her, too – she wants to be connected to him. Needs to know that he’s okay.

“Awesome!” Ven says, cheering up immediately. “Anyway, I came to tell you that Mickey just arrived – he wants to talk to you about something to do with the book he sent you?”

Aqua takes a breath and nods, resolutely not looking at the remnants of Ven’s wayfinder on her bench. “Of course. Can you go and tell him that I’ll be down in a few minutes?”

Ven gives her a thumbs up, and disappears. Aqua lets out a deep sigh and forces herself to look at the broken wayfinder again. It’s just glass and metal – Terra is downstairs, and she was just talking to Ven. The three of them are together again.

She brushes all the shards together at the centre of the table and stands up. She’ll mend it when she gets back.

* * *

The wayfinder sits on her workbench for weeks.

Every time she guiltily thinks of it, there’s always something else that she can find to distract herself – some new problem with the castle, or with a world out there that only a Keyblade wielder can fix. A tutoring session with Ven, or one of the other young Keyblade wielders that come and go from the Land of Departure like their world space is a revolving door. Excuses are easy to find and close at hand, and keep her from thinking too hard about why she’s keeping Ven’s wayfinder to herself.

Ven does ask her about it, but she tells him that these things take time, and that he should know how busy she’s been. He accepts that with a nod and a smile, and that makes the space in her chest feel even emptier. He’s so trusting. There’s no reason he shouldn’t trust her, really. Still, it makes her feel something that she can’t name, balled up and tight and aching. Her jaw aches from how often she grits her teeth.

Terra sees something of it, because he corners her when she’s sitting in the north east tower, helping focus the energy of the castle. It’s a good move for him – she can’t leave the room, either to get away from him or follow him, until she’s done. That should take another few hours, which is why she eyes him suspiciously when he slips inside the room.

“Hey,” he says. “Everything fine?”

“Hm,” she hums. This place has pockets of pure light and pure dark, and every shade in between. She remembers this world as being perfectly neutral, but she’s beginning to wonder if it’ll ever go back to being that. Maybe this is the new way that it balances – with every shadow and every light given a chance and a place.

“Good,” Terra says. There’s a weight to his pauses now, a depth that he never used to have. He’s learnt to think before jumping into every new situation. “Is something wrong?”

“With the castle?” she asks, deliberately misunderstanding. “It’s the same as it always is. I’m helping it to find a new normal.” This alone would be a full time job. The meddling of Organisation XIII had upset the murky oblivion that it had turned into, and the threads are fiddly to untangle. Maybe she should reach out to Naminé to ask for some insight into the problem.

“I didn’t mean the castle,” Terra says. “Come on, Aqua. I can help.”

“Help with what?” she snaps, turning to face him. She can’t move from where she’s sitting, but she can still look at him if she wants to.

“I mean, whatever is going on with you and Ven,” Terra says calmly. “I can tell that you’re avoiding him. It’s pretty obvious when it’s just the three of us living here.”

“I’m not avoiding him,” Aqua denies. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Sure,” Terra agrees easily, coming further into the room. “Then you won’t mind telling me what’s up.”

“There’s nothing up,” Aqua says, turning away from him once more.

Terra lets her stew in her lie, coming as close as he can to the edge of the circle without breaking it. It makes Aqua grit her teeth. That Terra has even picked up on anything means that she isn’t hiding the curl of uneasiness inside her well enough. If Terra can pick up on it, then that means that Ven possibly could as well, and she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t even know what’s wrong, herself; not enough to name it. Not enough to confront it head on. That annoys her, honestly. She’s used to fighting her problems. Even after coming back to the Realm of Light, there’s more than enough shadows around the castle for her to let her blade fall upon whenever she desires it.

“Yesterday, Riku and I were looking through the books to see if we could find anything about long term exposure to the darkness,” Terra says. “We’ve been talking about the differences that we’ve noticed in ourselves. It’s harder for him because he grew up steeped in it – he doesn’t know what’s normal and what isn’t. I was a Keyblade wielder for years before Xehanort, so I know a bit more about what should be happening and what shouldn’t.”

“Did you find anything?” Aqua asks, because if there’s something that can help Terra, then she wants to know about it. Terra deserves peace, after all that he’s been through, and though she knows that he’s grateful just to have possession of his own body again, she thinks that he deserves more than that.

He hums. “A few things. I think that we gained more just from comparing our experiences with each other. A lot of the texts… aren’t focused on recovering from what we went through.”

“You could change that,” Aqua suggests. “Riku is here often enough.”

“So what, I should suggest writing a paper?” Terra chuckles.

“Or a book.”

“Oh man, remember all those essays the Master used to make us write?” Terra says wistfully. “I can’t believe that I’m seriously thinking about writing one of my own free will.”

Aqua swallows. “You always hated them.”

“I wanted to be outside, training,” Terra agrees. “Not researching and writing out paragraphs of information. You were always telling me that I needed to do them, but I never really got why. You would always get so huffy with me for saying that I preferred to be out in the sun.”

She can’t imagine the two of them having such a pointless argument now. Not after everything they’ve been through.

“Well, if you do write something then you’d better let me proof it for you,” she says instead. “And you had better write it out neatly.”

“Riku suggested we could use the computers that they have in Radiant Garden,” Terra muses. “Apparently the man who is in charge of their technology has invented a new computer that’s portable.”

Aqua wrinkles her nose. “That’s just an excuse to avoid practising your handwriting.”

“Maybe, but you can’t get annoyed at me for it if I don’t do any,” Terra says. He’s quiet for a few seconds. “You could help too, you know. In writing it, not just editing.”

“You and Riku have more experience,” Aqua deflects, squeezing her hands tightly where they’re resting on her knees.

“Riku has had his Keyblade for less time than we spent training before our Mastery test,” Terra says. “The two of us were trapped for over ten years. There’s a difference.”

She doesn’t have to look at him, so she doesn’t. The pulsating crystal that she’s in the circle with is one of the focus points of this world; something load bearing. It measures and controls the density of light that Aqua shines forth over the castle and everything beyond it. Sometimes she wants to crank it up to the max and blast out every scrap of darkness here, but she knows that would hurt Terra, and probably herself too. That’s not the way of balance, of neutrality, but it’s tempting. She’s tempted, by too many things these days. A Master should have more control over herself.

She can’t even say that she’s unchanged by her time in the darkness, because that would be a lie and both of them would know it. This is what Terra has come to talk to her about – to try and get to see that she’s different. As if she doesn’t know that.

The girl that once walked these halls is gone. Aqua can barely sleep through the night, has taken down all the mirrors in the castle, and gets twitchy if she doesn’t fight something often enough. She doesn’t mourn her. That Aqua was foolish and caught up in things that didn’t matter at all. She knows better now.

“Riku is the one who brought it up,” Terra says, like that doesn’t make it worse. “He thinks your perspective would help us a lot. The more people we talk to, the more perspectives we can compare, and the better our results would be. Riku said that he would ask Roxas, Xion, Lea, and Isa; I said I would ask you.”

“If there’s something you’d like to know about the Realm of Darkness, I can tell you,” Aqua says bitterly. She’d been there for long enough to learn most of its tricks. “But I really do think you have more experience.”

“We have different experiences,” Terra sighs. “Us, and Ven too.”

She bristles. “Ven hasn’t been touched by the darkness – he was here, safe.” Asleep. Unchanging.

“Ven has his own shadow; even now, I doubt that Vanitas is truly gone. And even though he was here after he lost his heart, he still travelled to the other worlds before that. He’s grown, too.”

“I know that,” Aqua snaps. “I can see how much he’s grown.”

“Then why aren’t you acting like it?” Terra asks.

“I _am_ acting like it.”

There’s silence again, as Terra weighs his words. “Okay,” he finally says. “I know there’s something going on, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But you should think about it, at least. And I really would like your insight into the paper, if we end up writing one. Your essays were always way better than mine.”

Aqua doesn’t respond. Terra just sighs, and leaves, closing the door quietly behind him. The silence that he leaves behind shouldn’t feel accusing, but it does.

She stares into the crystal, and bites her tongue until it bleeds.

* * *

The sun is hot on her skin; she wonders if she’ll end up with sunburn tonight. Even if she probably will, she can’t make herself move from the top of the steps that lead into the Main Hall. The sun is a blessing, one that she can hardly bring herself to believe in some days. If it burns her, that’s just evidence that she can use when night falls, to prove to herself that she’s still here. That she escaped that place.

Ven is greeting Roxas and Kairi, the gummi ship humming quietly where it hovers just off the courtyard. She stands unmoving at the top of the stairs, watching them. Kairi is smiling, but even from here Aqua can see the dark circles under her eyes. Roxas is more restrained, but his disposition is more genuine. They’re all worried about Sora, but Kairi and Riku carry most of the burden.

The trio come towards her, and Ven runs past her. “Gonna go show Kairi the new magic thingy you found!” he calls out. Kairi gives her a small smile as she goes past. Aqua had found something more about the power of waking last week – hopefully Kairi would find it useful.

Roxas stops in front of her instead of following the other two. “Hi Aqua,” he says. “Xion and Lea can’t make it – got some stuff at home that they’re working on.” He scratches his cheek. “You said they didn’t have to come, right?”

Her heart squeezes. It’s high summer, and that means that all of the Keyblade wielders in training should be in one place to celebrate. But only Ven is her apprentice, so she can only ask for his time. Having any of the others here is still a blessing, and one that she’s grateful for. Still, she would have liked to have everyone here.

“If they can’t make it, we can still proceed with the ceremony,” Aqua tells him. “I’ll just have to make a few changes to accommodate for it.”

“Right,” Roxas says. He sighs.

“Is it something to do with Isa?” Aqua asks him. Isa has had the most trouble of anyone coming back to normal, besides maybe Terra. She supposes that being possessed for years on end tends to do that to a person.

“Yeah,” Roxas says awkwardly. “Look, we’re working on it.”

“I know you are,” Aqua reassures him. Isa does not have a Keyblade – he is not her responsibility. His friends are helping him, and that’s all she needs to know. Roxas just nods, closing his eyes for a second before he obviously sets it aside.

“Yeah. Can I do anything to help?”

“Go with Ven,” Aqua says. He might have gotten slightly distracted by showing the library to Kairi, but today is important to him to. “He’ll show you what to do.”

Roxas nods, and heads inside. Aqua lingers on the steps. There’s no reason for her to be here now. Riku had sent her a message saying that he might have found a lead and that he couldn’t make it, and Mickey hadn’t replied to her at all. If Xion and Lea aren’t coming, then everyone who is going to come is already here. She should go inside to the Main Hall to rearrange the spaces that she had already laid out to account for the two less people. She should go and tell Terra to set two less places on the table. She should corral Ven in case he gets off tangent and leads the two newcomers somewhere in deeper in the castle to distract them all.

Her skin tingles, tight under the burning light.

She closes her eyes and makes herself turn around and step into the shade. The sun will be back when she looks once again. It’s been almost six months since Sora and Riku rescued her from the Realm of Darkness. She hasn’t left the Land of Departure since she arrived here, and the sun has risen every day since.

She wonders when she’ll begin to truly believe it.

* * *

The ceremony goes off without a hitch, which Terra tells her is because of her meticulous preparation. She had already thought of what she would do if two novices didn’t show up (and if one didn’t show up, or if it was only her, Ven, and Terra). Rearranging the spaces only took a few minutes.

It isn’t like the ceremonies of her youth, which had been highly practised and formal affairs. The three who grew up on this world know the practised steps, but their guests don’t; Aqua doesn’t hold it against them. She’s the Master here, and the fact that they wanted to come and celebrate is more important than having something memorised. She watches as Roxas spins on the spot, Oathkeeper held above his head, with Ven shouting encouragement as he skids past. Terra and Kairi are spiralling more sedately around each other, but both are smiling.

Aqua casts another burst of magic over the hall, keeping the sparkly snow and fragments of magic falling. The Hall was made for this type of magic, with the high ceiling shaped just right for her to shoot a spell up into. The peak of the year is a turbulent time, but it’s also a good time to use the upset to add more magic into the bones of the world.

“Yes! More magic!” Ven laughs. He casts aero and bounces up into the air. Roxas boosts himself up with a pillar of light, and they collide into each other ungracefully. Terra catches the two of them before they hit the ground, and Aqua loosens her grip on her Keyblade.

“Just like we said,” Terra grunts. “Keep the magic focused inward, not upward.”

“I know, I know,” Ven says.

“Got it,” Roxas says.

Kairi casts fire, and it flares in the last of Ven’s aero, drenching the area with sparks. Terra sends a watera spell out to dowse them, and Aqua adds the water before freezing it, covering most of the floor with ice. Roxas slips, but Kairi catches his arm. Ven moves easily across the ice, used to Aqua making impromptu skating rinks. It was something they used to do a lot more during their childhood. This is the first time that she’s done it since they were reunited. Appropriate, that it would be for the celebration of their next generation of wielders.

“You just gotta channel some ice magic to your feet, then you can grip it like it’s a normal floor,” Ven says as he skates past.

“That’s not walking like normal!” Kairi yells after him.

“You gotta walk before you can skate!”

“That’s not the saying,” Roxas grumbles. Terra skates by the two of them, smirking slightly.

“Come on guys, you’re both adaptable.”

They are adaptable – it doesn’t take either of them too long to walk on the ice, at least. Ven keeps casting magic, adding layers to Aqua’s own. Terra keeps the water magic coming, which is good because it is quite hot and keeping her ice frozen is taking most of Aqua’s concentration at the moment.

“Roxas, Ventus, Kairi – you’ve been practising your trinity, so let us see it,” Aqua calls to them. Terra makes his way towards Aqua as the three of them convene in the middle of the room. In the past, it was her, Terra, and Ven who had done the final trinity, but it’s tradition to let the three youngers wielders in attendance perform it if they can. It shows that the future is bright and strong.

Aqua readies the Hall to catch the final display of magic as the trio lets loose. The outpouring of light is blinding, which makes sense when she thinks about it. With Kairi and Ven’s hearts devoid of darkness, and Roxas’s strong affinity to light, their trinity would be extremely bright. Terra covers his eyes as well, and Aqua manages to capture most of the magic, sending it deep into the roots of the castle where she can access it later.

The trio stand in the middle of the Hall after the spell fades, and Aqua dismisses her ice, melting it all so the floor is dry once again. The magic in the air is almost enough to chew on, but this world doesn’t like imbalance, and she knows it will be gone soon enough.

“Well done,” she says, smiling at all of them. Roxas nods, but Kairi just sticks her hand in her pocket to grab at something, and doesn’t meet Aqua’s eyes. Ven just runs a hand through his hair, eyes flicking between their two guests.

“Yeah, you two did awesome! Is that the first time you’ve done a true trinity, with three people?”

“Yeah,” Roxas says. “I’ve done one with Xion before, but not with three people.”

“I’ve done one with Riku and Sora,” Kairi mumbles. She pulls something out of her pocket, and Aqua purses her mouth. It’s a wayfinder, but one made of shells instead of glass. Kairi bows her head over it.

“Ah, you’ve got a wayfinder too!” Ven exclaims. “Here–”

His hand goes to his hip, but there’s nothing there – hasn’t been for a few months now. She feels Terra’s eyes on the back of her neck, but ignores him. She’s used to being watched.

“Oh, right,” Ven says, disappointed. “I broke mine a while ago and Aqua is still fixing it…”

“Aqua made us wayfinders before we left this world for the first time,” Terra says, holding his up in explanation. It glints quietly in the middling light. “Just like yours.”

“Oh,” Kairi says, blinking. “That’s so strange.”

“Maybe not so strange,” Aqua tells her. “You come from the world with star shaped fruit, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Kairi says quietly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Anyway,” Ven says, voice cheerful once again. “Now that we’ve got all the magic Aqua needs, we should go and have lunch! I’m starving!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Terra says, putting his hand on Ven’s shoulder and guiding him towards the kitchen. Kairi follows, asking what Ven’s wayfinder looks like. Aqua watches them go silently.

“Aqua?” Roxas asks her. He hasn’t moved from where he had finished the trinity. His eyes are a bright blue like the sky, but there’s a promise of a thunderstorm in them. “Are you okay?”

She makes herself smile for him. “Of course, Roxas. Come on. Let’s go have lunch – Ven and I were cooking all day yesterday, so I hope you can enjoy it.”

Roxas hums, and they head out of the Hall together.

* * *

“Hey, Aqua?”

The sun is setting over the edge of the world. Kairi and Roxas have already left, leaving the space behind them quiet in comparison. She can just see the first stars appearing in the sky. Another day gone past.

Ven isn’t looking at her, his face downturned as he stares at his feet.

“Yes Ven?”

He fidgets with the edge of his shirt, a nervous tell that he’s never managed to shake. “Thanks for organising today.”

It’s not what he really wants to say. When did they start to tread this gingerly around each other? “No thanks are necessary,” Aqua tells him. “It is my duty to provide for the young wielders under this roof. And those that are spread out among the stars, too.”

Ven nods once. “It was good to see Roxas and Kairi. We should have them over more often.”

Aqua would keep all of them on this world if she could, safe and under her eye. She hasn’t restricted Ven’s movements, because she knows that he deserves his freedom. She wants to, though. But, “Of course,” is all she says. “They’re welcome at any time.”

“Right,” Ven says, taking a deep breath and visibly bracing himself. “I just… wanted to ask if you were ever planning on giving my wayfinder back.”

Even knowing this was likely, Aqua still feels her mouth twist in displeasure. “Yes,” she says, a touch sharper than she intended. “It’s yours.”

He tilts his head up and sticks his chin out, meeting her eyes stubbornly. “Then why haven’t you? It’s been ages – if you wanted to repair it, then it would have been done by now. But you haven’t touched it since I gave it to you.” He swallows. “If you don’t want me to have it… to have any wayfinder… that’s… it’s fine, it was a gift form you in the first place and you can take it back if you want but it just means a lot to me so–”

“Ven,” Aqua cuts in sharply.

“So if you could give it back,” Ven continues doggedly. “I’d really like that.”

“I _told_ you, I am going to give it back.”

“I don’t believe you!” Ven bursts out. The words leave a fragile silence behind them, like the whole room is holding its breath. Aqua sets her jaw.

“I said that I was going to–”

“And you haven’t followed through on it,” Ven says, eyes wide and hurting. “That’s not like the Aqua I used to know!”

“I’m still the same person,” Aqua says, gritting her teeth.

“You don’t act like it sometimes.”

Aqua bites her lip until she tastes blood. She’s changed; obviously. She knows that. But it still stings to hear Ven say it, like what he really means is _I prefer you like how you used to be._

“I know that I’ve changed,” she says lowly. “And – that sometimes things aren’t the way that they used to be. But…”

“Aqua…” Ven says, mouth twisting slightly. He looks so exactly the same as he did when they were younger, that sometimes she forgets that he’s done his share of growing up too. That he’s more than earnt his days of sitting in the sun, of playing with his friends. He’s still young, but there’s a wisdom in his eyes that he didn’t have when they were all still apprentices.

She really tries not to be jealous of him and his light, and she thinks that mostly she’s successful. It’s only in moments like this when it rears its ugly head, and she’s reminded that he’s not the only one who’s different.

She looks aside. That seems to stoke Ven’s guttering fire, and he takes a step closer to her.

“Just because things are different now, doesn’t mean that you can just… keep things from me,” Ven says tightly. “I’m not a kid anymore – I can handle myself, and I don’t need you to watch me all the time. If you don’t want me around–”

“Ven,” Terra cuts in sharply. She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her. “Walk it off. Now.”

Ven gives her one more betrayed look, before turning on his heel and fleeing. Aqua watches him go with something bitter at the back of her throat.

“Hey,” Terra says. He doesn’t step into her personal bubble, keeping more than an arm’s distance between them. Aqua looks away from him, but doesn’t move. She doesn’t know if she wants to be closer or further away.

“What?” she asks sharply, after he doesn’t add anything else.

Terra sighs, a heavy sound. He’s quiet now, thoughtful where she’s used to him being brash and loud. That, at least, is easier to reconcile within herself. He’s been fighting the darkness for all these years, just like she has. Time has touched him, adding creases to his mouth and eyes, and deepening his stance. There’s silver in his hair too, though she isn’t sure if that’s from age or just Xehanort’s influence.

“I understand why,” Terra finally says. “But you’re hurting him and yourself by doing this.”

“I wish he could understand,” Aqua says, trying not to let herself be bitter. She thinks back to those few golden days after coming back to the Land of Departure, when everything seemed like it could go back to how it once had been. Before she and Ven had started to rub against each other in all the wrong ways; before it was clear that Aqua couldn’t sleep easily anymore; before Terra had become the one to settle differences between them.

“He does understand,” Terra tells her gently. “And you know he does. And you understand him, too. You’re too good at seeing what is really at the heart of people. Maybe you’ve forgotten that you need things too.”

She bites back the urge to tell him that Ven doesn’t need to give her anything. It’s not true, and both of them know it. Aqua needs both Ven and Terra.

“You need to forgive him,” Terra continues. “And you need to forgive yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” Aqua asks him. “When Ven apologises, I’ll forgive him. And I don’t need to forgive myself for anything – I accept everything that I’ve done.”

“Accepting it doesn’t mean forgiving yourself for it,” Terra points out. They’re talking about something different now; something that Aqua doesn’t want to talk about. Something that she wants to pretend isn’t relevant anymore, something that should stay tucked away in the shadows that birthed it. “I should know. I had a lot of time to think, trapped inside Xehanort. I slept for a long time, and fought for a long time, but most of those years are empty spaces, when all I had was myself. Made it hard to not do at least some self-reflection.”

“And you think I wasn’t the same?” she asks. “You think that in all that time, all by myself, I didn’t have time to think either?”

She thinks of a woman in a mirror, and the warm touch of a wayfinder that had been all that had saved her. Mickey’s presence by her side, as fleeting as it had been. There had been no one else, not until Sora and Riku had come and pulled her up and out of that place. She’d been alone, with only illusions to keep her company.

“No, I don’t think that,” Terra says. “But I think we had very different experiences. You were constantly on edge, not sure where the next danger would come from. Moving from place to place, ever searching for a way out. I had Xehanort right there – I had one goal to focus on, one way to resist him.” A smile plays over his mouth. “Lucky I’m so stubborn. But I got pretty good at it, after a while. Let me think of other things. I don’t know if you ever got something like that.”

Her throat is tight. _Maybe not,_ she thinks. The Realm of Darkness was an ever shifting landscape of threats, and she barely got time to be alone without looking over her shoulder, let alone time to sit down and _think_. What she had done there… had been necessary. She had persevered. She is still alive. It was worth it. Even if she doesn’t fit into the old shell that she left behind without even realising it.

Terra finally steps into her space, to reach out and take her hand. “It’s okay,” he tells her. “We’re all still adjusting. You just have to recognise what’s going on, and what you’re doing. And maybe apologise to Ven.”

She nods jerkily. She wanted the wayfinder as – proof, maybe, that Ven could be as broken as she is. And that even if he is broken, she can help fix him. But she hadn’t fixed the wayfinder – she had left it fallow, ignoring the problem even as it sat ever present in the back of her mind. It hadn’t been a long-term solution to anything, and she probably shouldn’t have kept it from Ven and lied to him about it. She’s still not used to Ven actually being in front of her to talk back about the decisions that she makes.

“I’m here,” he says. “And Ven is too. We’re a family, right? You don’t have to worry about us leaving. We want to be here, and we worry about you too.”

The three of them are here. Together. Maybe she should have realised this before now, but they’re stronger together. She can lean on them when she needs help.

“Right,” Aqua says, heavy. She’s used to regretting her choices, but this one hurts more than she expects it to. “I…”

Terra waits for her to finish her sentence, but even she doesn’t know what she was going to say. Eventually, he sighs.

“I’ll go and find Ven,” he says. “Stay here; I don’t think he’ll have gone far.”

Aqua manages to nod, and Terra leaves. She looks out the window again. The sun has set, leaving only an orange smear in the sky that’s rapidly fading. It will be another half a day before it rises again. She closes her eyes.

She doesn’t keep track of how long she stands there, but when the door opens again the sky outside is studded with stars. Terra murmurs something to Ven, but she’s looking at the space in between the points of light and thinking: that it’s a very deep blue. That she missed the stars almost as much as she missed the sun. That she should appreciate every part of her new life.

“Aqua,” Terra says. She turns to look at them. Terra has his eyebrows lifted meaningfully. Ven is just shifting his weight between his feet, mouth set in a thin line, hand on the edge of his shirt.

“I’m sorry Ven,” Aqua says. She swallows. “I… I should have fixed your wayfinder when I told you I would. I shouldn’t have kept it from you when I know how much it means to you.”

Ven’s mouth softens. “I shouldn’t have said that stuff,” he mumbles. “I know you care about me.”

“I do,” Aqua says firmly. “And I don’t want you gone, I promise. I want you here by my side – both of you.”

Terra smiles slightly, and Ven lifts his head. “I want to be friends with both of you,” he says firmly. “You’re both important to me.” He picks at his fingernail, a habit that normally Aqua would chastise him about. “Sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s okay,” Aqua says, feeling slightly choked. She takes a step towards them, and then another. It’s easier to cross the distance when they come towards her. She sniffles a little bit, feeling wetness gather at the edge of her eyes. “And I’ll fix your wayfinder. For real this time. And… we can work on everything else. Everything else that we’ve been avoiding talking about. I don’t know if we can really go back to how we were when we were kids, but we can…” She trails off, unsure how to end the sentence.

“We can build something new,” Terra says for her. He puts a hand on Ven’s shoulder, and smiles at him when Ven looks up at him. 

“Okay,” Ven says, sounding just as wet as Aqua feels. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be good.”

Terra’s arm falls across her shoulders as he hugs both her and Ven. Aqua angles herself into his grasp, still sniffling. Terra is big and warm and familiar smelling. Ven has grown over the last few months, but he still fits under her arm and can lay his head on her shoulder. Ven squeezes her tightly, and Aqua puts her nose in his hair. Things _have_ changed since they were kids, but that’s not always a bad thing. She knows that she can count on them, however she needs them. Terra and Ven will always be there for her, even if they’re not always by her side. They know her heart, just like she knows theirs.

“Ice cream?” Ven asks hopefully after a few minutes have passed.

Aqua laughs wetly. “You’ve been spending too much time with Roxas.”

Ven leans back enough to look up at the both of them and smile widely. “It works though!”

The warmth that spools through her is as familiar as it is nostalgic. “Of course, Ven. Of course.”


End file.
